The Pearl of Bengal (3 page)

Chandler cleared his throat. “They’ve taken a steamer to India, Miss Agatha,” he replied. “They’ll be there for at least a week.”

“The international conference on renewable energy, right?”

The butler nodded, adjusting the projector’s lens. “You’ll have plenty of time to watch it before they return, Miss.”

Agatha wasn’t convinced. She turned toward Watson, who was nosing around through a dust-covered carton. “What are you up to, kitty?” she asked.

The cat jumped out of the carton and set his paw on a single film canister under the table—another gift from Mom and Dad. It had never been opened.

Chandler and Agatha exchanged a stunned glance.

“Apparently Watson has a thing for Alfred Hitchcock,” she observed with a laugh.

She opened the canister and handed the butler a copy of Hitchcock’s classic thriller
Rear Window
. “Decision made!”

“As you wish, Miss Agatha.”

While Chandler patiently threaded the reel, Agatha pulled the dark velvet curtains closed, taking a seat in her favorite armchair. She wasn’t one of those people who lounged on the couch munching popcorn, like some of her friends—or her cousin. She liked to take notes in the notebook that she always carried, jotting down quick descriptions of characters, furniture, costumes, and any other detail that caught her imagination.

Like every member of the Mistery family, Agatha had her eye on an eccentric career.

She wanted to be a writer.

More specifically, a mystery writer. The best in the world.

To that end, she spent her days reading novels, poring over old encyclopedias, flipping through magazines and newspapers, watching movies and documentaries, always on the lookout for interesting ideas for stories.

As soon as the room went dark and the opening credits started to roll, Agatha felt a shiver of excitement. She knew director Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense, and the opening shots of a city courtyard on a hot summer day made her wonder what terrible thing was about to take place there. A man in pajamas sat next to a window, his camera abandoned next to a stack of
Life
magazines. “A photographer,” she murmured. “And his leg’s in a cast, so…”

She felt a wet touch on her shoulder.

Who could it be?

She turned quickly.

“D-Dash?” she stammered.

“That’s my name!”

“What are you doing here, cousin?”

“It’s a disaster,” he said, squirming to pat himself dry with a tissue. “Can you spare a couple of minutes?”

“Of course.”

From the tone of his voice, she could already tell that a couple of minutes would not be enough.

Dash plunked down beside her. “My school’s given me a new mission,” he rattled. “I have to solve a really crazy case!” He broke off, leaping back out of his seat. “What in the world!?” he shouted. “What
is
that?!”

A dark shadow loomed over the screen. It was some sort of horrible monster with giant hooked claws.

“Are you jumpy or what, Dash?” laughed Agatha. “Look closer. It’s just Watson’s shadow. He stepped in front of the projector!”

“Oh—oh, are you sure? That cat’s trying to kill me! I could have died of fright!”

There was a lot of bad blood between Dash and Watson.

Agatha stood up, waving her arms to get Chandler’s attention. He snapped on the lights and turned off the projector.

“Sorry, Agatha.” Dash stared guiltily at the blank screen. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your screening…”

“Tell me everything.”

The young detective started to pace back and forth as he filled her in. He couldn’t be sure that his phone wasn’t tapped—his professors were experts at spyware—so he’d come in person to the Mistery Estate. He didn’t want anybody at Eye International to know how much Agatha helped him with solving the cases he was assigned.

“Got it,” said Agatha. “Where are we being sent this time?”

“It’s a village in Sundarbans National Park, near Kolkata.”

“You’re kidding me.” Agatha flinched. “My parents are in India, too. That’s too close for comfort!”

“Excuse my correction, Miss Agatha,” Chandler interjected. No one ever noticed his
light, discreet steps. “Mr. and Mrs. Mistery are in the capital city, New Delhi, in western India,” he explained. “Kolkata is in the east, hundreds of miles away.”

“Yes, of course, Chandler,” Agatha said, nodding. “But we may have to fly through New Delhi. What will we do if we run into them?”

Just as Dash hid his cousin’s help from his professors, Agatha had never told her parents that she accompanied Dash on his missions around the world.

“Let’s plan a surprise for them,” suggested Dash.

Agatha pursed her lips, doubtful. “What sort of surprise?”

“Simple. Once we’ve solved the case, we’ll go visit them in New Delhi. I bet they’ll jump for joy to see us! What do you think?”

Chandler gave a small nod of agreement.

“I have to admit, that’s not a bad thought,”
said Agatha, twisting a lock of her short, blond hair. “All right, let’s do it!”

She sent the butler to pack while she and Dash went to her room to download mission data.

They clicked on the main file, and a familiar face with a mustache and bowler hat filled the screen.

It was Agent UM60, professor of Investigation Techniques.

Dash’s cheeks flushed instantly.

“I’ll be brief, Agent DM14,” the professor said. “The
data we have on this case is quite scarce: a recorded phone call, some photo files, and a man who’s gone missing. It’s a mystery we know precious little about. Your mission: to fill in the gaps and solve the case. You have five days and not one minute more. Otherwise, you’ll be expelled. Happy hunting!”

The message clicked off.

“Interesting,” said Agatha.

“You mean
terrifying
,” said Dash, who looked very pale.

The girl clicked open the file containing the recorded phone call. The audio signal was very bad, and they had to replay it several times to understand some parts.

“Someone’s inside the house…KSSSHH KSSSHH…They’ve picked the lock, I hear feet on the stairs…KSSSHH KSSSHH…They’re coming toward my door, I know what they’re after—the pearl! The pearl! KSSSHH KSSSHH…If anything happens
to me, tell my dear friend…KSSSHH KSSSHH…Deshpande!…BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP…

Agatha’s eyes glowed with excitement. “First off, we need to discover whose voice that is. Then we can start reconstructing exactly what happened. You agree, Dash?”

White-faced, Dash rubbed his temples as if he’d just gotten the world’s biggest headache.

T
he only nonstop to Kolkata was a red-eye from Heathrow at 10:00 p.m. The Mistery cousins were glad to have plenty of prep time.

They split up the tasks. Chandler booked their flights and took care of all the travel details, Dash pored over the files his school had attached, and Agatha went to the Mistery Estate’s huge library to investigate India.

“If memory serves,” she told Dash, “one of our relatives wrote an article about Bengal tigers for
National Geographic
.”

“Did you pull that out of one of your famous memory drawers?” Dash smirked. He was always
cracking jokes about Agatha’s amazing memory. He paused for a moment, then stuttered, “Wait! What? Did you just say…
tigers?!
”

“I did,” she said calmly. “The Sundarbans region has the largest population of man-eaters in the whole world!”

Dash shook his head and turned back to his file. “As if that obnoxious cat weren’t bad enough, now we’re dealing with man-eating tigers!” he groaned.

Like her parents, Agatha preferred old-fashioned technologies. While Dash surfed the net with his EyeNet, she rolled a ladder around the high shelves of the oak-paneled library, pulling down a dozen leather-bound volumes on the history and religions of India. Even at first glance, it looked like a very complicated subject.

Next, she searched for the issue of
National Geographic
with the photo spread on Bengal tigers. “I was right!” she told Dash. “His name is Rudyard Mistery! He’s a nature photographer, and a very brave one, from the looks of these close-ups.”

“Oh great,” said her cousin. He didn’t sound happy.

Agatha studied a shot of a snarling male tiger’s face. “Looks like he used an extreme telephoto lens, like the one in
Rear Window
.”

She and Dash went to look at the Mistery family tree, a gigantic world map marked with residences, occupations, and family relationships of every known member of the Mistery clan. “Here he is,
Uncle Rudyard
,” she exclaimed. “Oh, and what good luck—he lives in Kolkata!”

She picked up the phone and dialed his number. “I hope he’s working in his darkroom. It’s a four-and-a-half-hour time difference,” she noted. “I hope he can give us a hand!”

From the other end of the line, a hearty voice boomed,
“Mistery Photo, hello there. Who’s calling from London?” It was Uncle Rudyard.

The conversation went for a good half an hour. By the time Rudyard finally hung up, Agatha’s ears were smoking. “That uncle of ours can talk a blue streak,” she told Dash, slightly breathless. “But he’s already gotten ‘an old chum’ to set up a visitors’ permit for Sundarbans National Park. And he has a peculiar request.”

“Of course he does, he’s a Mistery! What is it this time?”

“He asked if any of us can fly a plane.”

Just then, Chandler entered the room with his usual discretion. “If I can be of service, Miss Agatha, many years ago I took flying lessons.”

“Excellent, Chandler,” she replied. “Add your aviation equipment to our luggage.”

The butler didn’t bat an eye. “As you wish, Miss,” he said. “Dinner is served.”

They went to the ancestral dining room and
sat at a long Louis XIV table, set with the Mistery family’s best china. Chandler had even set out the silver cutlery and linen napkins with the family monogram.

He served the cousins a perfectly cooked sole meunière, which they wolfed down in no time. Dash took seconds of everything, and thirds of the roasted potatoes.

“What did you learn from the files, Dash?” asked Agatha, digging a spoon into her chocolate mousse.

“There was a theft,” mumbled Dash with his mouth full.

“The pearl in the phone message?”

Dash nodded. “Not just any pearl. The world-famous Pearl of Bengal.”

Agatha touched the tip of her nose. “Hmm, I read something about that…A Hindu temple half buried in the jungle, with an ancient statue of the goddess Kali…” She paused for a moment. “Kali
was holding the pearl in the palm of her hand, am I right?”

Dash was no longer astonished by Agatha’s amazing mnemonic talents. “You opened the right drawer, cousin. The village is called Chotoka. It’s on the delta of the Ganges River. Very remote,” he added. “The website called it ‘inaccessible.’”

“Anything else?” she pressed.

“On the night of the theft, the old custodian, Amitav Chandra, disappeared. He was the only one who knew which ten of a hundred keys opened the doors to the sanctuary of the goddess Kali. It was his voice we heard on the recording.”

“Abduction or murder?”

“Nobody knows yet,” Dash replied, sounding uncertain. “There are no police in Sundarbans National Park, only the forest guard, led by Captain Deshpande.”